


Color Theory

by gwyneth rhys (gwyneth)



Series: Visual Aids [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Body Image, Bucky Barnes Recovering, M/M, Miscommunication, Pining, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Protective Steve Rogers, Synesthesia, kitties
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-11
Updated: 2014-10-11
Packaged: 2018-02-20 19:27:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2440196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gwyneth/pseuds/gwyneth%20rhys
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The desire was fierce inside him; sometimes Steve caught Bucky staring at him, regarding a little too closely that sumptuous mouth or the hollow of his throat, wishing he could tear Steve to pieces with his lips and hands and teeth and lavish him with kisses.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Color Theory

**Author's Note:**

> This is a sort of continuation/sequel of [Every Picture Tells a Story,](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2334275) kind of the 2014 version of that fic, I guess. I love my idiotic, pining boys.
> 
> There is some talk of suicidal thoughts in here; it's typical Bucky and Steve have issues and not too detailed, but it does exist.

“Did you know there’s bacon-flavored vodka?” Bucky asked Steve, cradling the phone to his ear with his shoulder.

Steve huffed out a laugh on the other end. “Yeah, among about a thousand other flavors. And bacon seems to be a--a thing these days. There are whole restaurants devoted to it.” He paused. “Where are you? There’s an echo.”

Normally, Bucky didn’t call him when he went on what Steve teasingly called his “patrols.” He simply bolted when he got too restless or the walls closed in on him. From the beginning, though, Steve had insisted he take his phone in case of emergencies, which Bucky had quickly discovered was really so Steve could tail him. He didn’t follow as often anymore, mostly because Bucky didn’t go as far or stay out as long as he had those first months. They had a silent understanding about it: Bucky pretended he didn’t know Steve was following him and Steve pretended he wasn’t terrified every time Bucky left the apartment. Well, Steve tried to pretend; he’d always been a lousy actor. 

“I ducked into a-- I think it’s a sports bar? I don’t know, it ain’t what I thought that would be, it’s all sleek and shiny, but there are about fifteen TVs and they’re all playing sports. In Soho, I think?” He had been drawn in by the vibrant jewel colors of the liquor backlit by the bar, always a lure to him, especially when he was perilously close to losing control.

The drugs they’d kept him on all those years had dulled so much of his existence, creating a nearly monochromatic world of grays and beiges and the never-ending black nights of cryostasis. In the weeks after his fight with Steve on the helicarrier, the world had slowly begun filling in, colors seeping through the edges of his vision. Even when he’d been doubled up on the floor of a rundown hotel room, vomiting his guts up from withdrawal and soaked in sweat, the world had bloomed around him. 

“Too many people outside?” Steve asked.

“Yeah. Even this time of night. This place was pretty, all lit up. But then they asked what I wanted to drink and it was just...too many options. Too many choices to make. So I’m hiding in the john.” He closed his eyes, let the hues playing behind his lids wash over him. Sounds and tastes and scents all had color now--Dr. Banner had told him it was very much like synesthesia, which he’d looked up and thought that seemed about right. Banner said it might go away with time, but Bucky kind of hoped not. Life had in fact been lifeless, full of whey-faced men and women in ashen coats, the endless white landscape of Russia in winter. It sometimes seemed as if his world had been punctuated only by the dark red blood pooling under a target’s body or the yellowy brass of a shell casing.

Even though New York was gray, too, covered in its perpetual coat of grime, the vivid red and green of traffic signals, the piercing yellow of the taxis, the red brick walls were intoxicating. After they’d go out for a run or just doing errands, Steve would ask him what colors he noticed that day, or what he saw when he listened to music, and then he’d break out his pencils and sketch what Bucky described. Steve taught him names he’d never heard before--cerise, aubergine, celadon, saffron, the words as lovely as the shades they represented. He cataloged them mentally, enjoyed tagging something he saw with his new vocabulary.

Steve said, “That’s actually a psychological thing--choice paralysis, or something like that. People can’t choose when there’s too much to choose from.”

“Huh. I saw a girl with lime-green hair. It was _beautiful_ ,” he nearly whispered. “It looked like cotton candy, and I wanted to know what it felt like, but...” He gave an awkward laugh. “Not something you can really ask a gal.” He had to constantly rein in his fascination with all the new things there were to taste and touch and see, check himself that he didn’t overindulge because he could now make choices or experience something simply because he wanted to. Self determination was a blessing and a curse when your mind was still a disaster zone.

“Yeah, you can’t really give a gal a wink and a ‘hey, doll’ anymore, the way you used to.”

“I never did that.” 

“Oh yes you did. And every girl was more than happy to have you do it.” He paused. “I can talk to you for a while if you want. Help you work through it.” The sound of Steve’s voice, always a rich bronze in his mind, made Bucky feel safe when he was in crisis. Steve would often talk to him as he worked his way past whatever icy white fear gripped his mind, just rambling about any old thing as Bucky shook it off. “How’d you end up in Soho? That’s farther than you’ve ever gone.”

“I don’t know. Got to the bridge and I couldn’t stop walking.” They’d been watching a movie when something had set him off, he couldn’t even remember what it was, but he’d had to get up, check the perimeter, and he just kept getting farther and farther away. Bucky closed his eyes, leaned against the toilet stall door, willing the prickling sensation of tears away, red and sharp. He hadn’t cried yet; he wasn’t gonna start now.

“Well, at least it’s a nice neighborhood.” Bucky huffed, something like a laugh. Both of them were still trying to get used to the changes in the city. “There, that’s better. Why don’t you take a couple deep breaths, just keep walking forward.” Bucky inhaled a few times, looking at himself in the mirror. Still the same monstrous face he saw every time. He couldn’t understand why Steve cared so much, tried so hard. Treated him as if he were something precious and rare. “Open the door, take your time.” He opened it and stepped back into the bar, the rush of voices and the lights from traffic outside the windows backhanding him in the face. “Just keep going, you’re okay.” Sucking in a breath, he went around the corner and there was Steve, standing at one of the tables with a glow of light around him like the bluing on a pistol, smiling at him and holding his hand up in a shy little wave.

Bucky hung up the phone and shook his head. “You’re a dark horse, you know that, Rogers?”

“Are you mad?” He bit his lip, which made Bucky’s stomach flutter.

“Were you following me the whole time? Or did you just get here?” This was the first time he hadn’t known Steve was behind him, and he didn’t know what to make of that.

“When I saw that you were going farther and farther past the bridge, I couldn’t help it.” He pulled out a stool and sat. “Look, I knew you knew I’ve been tailing you, so I had Natasha tutor me in how to do it better. I don’t think I could bear to lo--” He sighed. “I couldn’t stand it if anything happened to you again.”

“I know.” Bucky didn’t want to talk about the threat of Hydra finding him, or what would happen if the government decided to cart him away. It was a topic they’d mutually agreed to avoid discussing unless they absolutely had to. “I’m not angry.”

“I would have turned around and gone home, left you alone, but you called. Might as well have a drink since we’re here, right?”

There was a noticeable bulge under Steve’s arm. “Are you carrying?” Bucky asked with a laugh.

Steve shrugged. “I can’t really bring my shield and I just...” Bucky held his hand up in acknowledgement. Maybe someday he’d get back to carrying his own weapons, but since he’d come to Steve’s, he hadn’t wanted to look at them, let alone touch them, outside of a couple small knives he always carried just in case. 

“What do you do when we run? Even you can’t be wearing an ankle holster on a twenty-mile run.”

“There’s a special code on my phone for Tony. He or Colonel Rhodes could be there pretty quickly.”

“Huh. Clever boy.” Bucky smiled, pulled out another stool, and sat down. Steve’s eyes glittered in the amber light above their heads. Sometimes Bucky didn’t know what hurt more--the misery that always sat in the pit of his stomach or looking at Steve’s handsome face, so weary with concern and yet still so alluring and beautiful. It was like constantly being punched in the throat, having these thoughts about Steve but knowing how unobtainable that part of him was now. 

“Gracie started meowing the instant you left, of course. She always does. She is totally your baby.” One night when he’d been walking he’d found an injured orange-spotted white cat, scrawny and scrappy but friendly as could be--Bucky thought she was kind of the cat version of Steve when he’d been small. They’d taken her to the vet, and since she’d had no collar or microchip--it amused Bucky that animals were now tagged much the same way he’d been--they’d kept her, naming her Gracie Allen, after one of their favorite radio performers. Steve said he’d always wanted a pet, and a cat was lower maintenance for someone who had to travel at a moment’s notice.

“Maybe I should get one of those things they carry babies in these days and bring her with me when I lose it.” Gracie’s jaw had been infected and she’d lost some of it as well as the teeth there, but Bucky thought it made her even lovelier, because she was carrying on in the face of something terrible. A cat could never dream about putting a bullet in her brain and ending it all, so Bucky took that as his object lesson for those times he felt the most despair, when he was the least human he could be.

Bucky reached across the table, and Steve slid his arm over so Bucky could wrap his fingers around his wrist and feel his pulse, let it ground him. 

The first time Bucky’d done that was the night he’d shown up on Steve’s doorstep, shaking with fear, nonverbal, terrified. He’d been convinced Steve would turn him away after everything that had happened on the helicarrier, but Steve had put his arms around him, pulled him inside, and begged him to stay. He’d put Bucky on the couch that night, somehow knowing that Bucky needed something cocooned around him, and Steve had sat on the floor at the end of the couch, as if he was guarding Bucky. 

He hadn’t really even known why, just that he needed to feel Steve’s pulse, needed to know that Steve was real and present and there was still life in him even after he’d tried to take it away. But when he’d reached out to take his wrist, Steve had pulled his arm back so quickly he’d almost hit himself in the face. Bucky had curled into himself, shame burning red in his heart. It had been hopelessly naive to think that Steve would welcome his touch after everything that had happened. They’d once been intimately close, he remembered that much, always living in each other’s pockets, but Steve’s fear-clouded eyes that night told him how impossible that intimacy would be to reclaim. Steve had apologized, told Bucky he was just startled, but Bucky couldn’t chance touching him again, it was much too costly for him.

But some weeks later Bucky’d had a panic attack, so Steve had once again put his arms around him, tentative and shy. Bucky could explain himself by then, having found an approximation of his own voice, so he told Steve, “I need to feel your pulse.” Steve had nodded, pressed his forehead to Bucky’s shoulder with a sigh, quivering just a little with a fear Bucky couldn’t begrudge him. 

Now Steve was used to it, seemed to understand when Bucky needed to ground himself with Steve’s strength, his certainty. Sometimes even encouraged it.

“Do you want to talk about it? Something’s been on your mind lately, I can tell.” Steve tilted his head sideways, staring at him with those forlorn indigo eyes. 

Now Bucky remembered what it was that set him off--two men kissing in the movie they were watching. He’d sat there in mute agony on the sofa for as long as he could, knowing Steve was just as uncomfortable as he was, before the blistering shame made him run. Bucky wanted to spare Steve’s feelings, give him room to breathe--he didn’t need the pain of having to relive that part of their past. It was a perpetual ache in his heart from the remembered joy of a life they’d once had, one that he was now completely cut off from, and he needed to be as far away from Steve as possible.

Bucky started to slide his fingers from Steve’s wrist, but Steve placed his other hand over them. Bucky blinked, stared at his face. That dull edge of pain had returned to Steve’s eyes. But he didn’t take his hand away, and a dark violet shiver rippled through him.

“Nothing to talk about. Sometimes I just...the walls close in.” He let the heavy thump thump of Steve’s pulse throb in his head, crowding out the desire and need and fear that otherwise jangled in his brain when he touched Steve’s skin.

“You know you can talk to me about anything that’s worrying you. Anything. That I still--”

“Can I get you gents something to drink?” the waiter cut in. His eyes went round and he said, “Whoa! Are you kidding me?”

Steve turned to the waiter and smiled. Bucky sat back and tucked his chin down, took his hand away from Steve’s. Whenever someone spotted Steve in the wild, Bucky tried to fade into the landscape as much as possible, even though he doubted anyone would recognize him--most people seemed to know Steve from the Battle of New York or the Insight disaster, not the Captain America stories of their day. It still made Bucky feel oddly proud, even if there was a touch of melancholy that even now he had to share Steve with the world. He no longer had a right to feel that way, but there it was. 

Steve ordered a couple of bourbons for them and they sat silently until the waiter brought them back, saying, “On the house.” When Steve started to argue with him about it, he held up his hands. “Dude, my little sister was in the bank building you saved during the attack. We’ve heard every single detail about it. This is the least I can do. Although, could I get a…” He held his phone up and Steve did what he always did, slinging an arm around the guy and smiling for a picture.

After he left, the silence once more fell over them, the air weighed down, thick. Steve had been about to say something--Bucky knew what word he wished could come after that “still,” but that wasn’t who Steve was now. He’d loved Bucky that way when they were boys. But then he’d moved on--first with Peggy seventy years ago, and now in this century with Sharon Carter. 

As they sipped their bourbons, Bucky realized he hadn’t heard Steve talk about her in a few weeks, and that she hadn’t been by, either. He knew their relationship was extremely casual, but that seemed peculiar. “Where’s Sharon been?” He liked her, as much as he liked anyone. The fact that she carried an FNX-45 Tactical as her personal sidearm was enough to endear her to him, but she made Steve happy, and that was the most important thing. He wanted Steve to be happy, he really did. He deserved that much.

Steve played with the napkin under his glass and smiled, but it was dark blue, pained. Steve always smiled like that when he was sad, which was one of the most heartbreaking bits of knowledge that had returned to Bucky these past months. “She is the master of letting me down easy.”

“What happened?” 

“She said my heart is still clearly with someone back in the war.” He looked up then, straight into Bucky’s eyes, almost with a dare. Bucky didn’t know what to say; he’d expected the answer to be that it was because Steve had elected to put most of his life on hold to help Bucky get better, and that was too much to take even for Sharon. The answer he wasn’t prepared for was that Steve’s heart still belonged to Peggy. But it made sense--Peggy might have grown older without him, but for him it was only a few years since he went into the ice. He wouldn’t get over her that quickly.

“I’m sorry,” Bucky said. He squeezed his eyes shut against the suffocating heat in his chest, crimson and orange behind his eyelids, bile in his throat. 

“Are you all right?” Steve asked, and touched Bucky’s arm. “I don’t mean to harp on it, but if there’s something you want to talk about... I feel like there’s something you’re afraid to say because maybe you think it’ll hurt me or make me angry.”

He knew what Steve was trying to do, it had been going on for months now, ever since that day Steve had interrupted him when he was on the Internet, trying to catch up. Bucky had accidentally stumbled on some site full of pictures of guys wearing Captain America costumes, guys who looked mostly nothing like Steve, in various stages of undress or arousal. At first he’d laughed with embarrassment, but then threads of memories began unraveling: of Steve when he was little, naked in bed with him, of Steve in his new body taking off his uniform and making love with him in a dark, damp tent. Of pornographic pictures and Bucky posing for Steve as he sketched him with hungry eyes. 

Bucky had sat in front of the computer, gawping, startled by a heat in his groin, his dick getting hard. Reawakening sensations that had been completely lost to him, memories slithering out of the darkness. As he paged through the photos, more and more of his past with Steve came forward, all the things he wanted now without knowing he’d wanted anything at all. Of folding himself around Steve when he was ill and holding him tight, as if they were on a sinking ship and Bucky alone could save him by the beat of his heart against Steve’s spine. Of sneaking off beyond the tree line while the Commandos slept and kissing till their lips were numb, dry humping each other against the trunk of an aspen. The memories flooded gold and green and blue through his mind, choking him with their power, and he hadn’t even really been seeing the screen by then, pulled down under the heavy tide of desire.

It had been so overpowering that Bucky hadn’t heard Steve come up behind him until he gave a half-breathed “huh” and said, “You found one of those.” Bucky had whirled around, red-faced. Steve looked--not just embarrassed, but almost angry. “It’s a...a thing with celebrities, I guess. Believe me, you don’t want to see what else is out there, either about me or you. There’s much worse.” Bucky had shut down the computer, ashamed for himself but mostly for Steve. But Steve had stayed where he was, shifting back and forth, until he’d said, “I’m really sorry you had to see that. I should probably have warned you a while ago.”

Later, Steve had asked him if he wanted to talk about it, but Bucky withdrew--he’d recognized the look on Steve’s face at the moment he’d seen the computer: it was the same one he’d had when he’d recoiled from Bucky’s touch that first night. How could he blame him? Bucky was an ugly, subhuman _thing_ , one that had nearly beaten Steve to death, shot him with intent to kill and nearly succeeded. The only reason Steve was still here with him was because of his sense of obligation. He’d seen the way Steve was with Sharon and all his new friends, his easy smiles and laughter. Bucky didn’t fit in Steve’s world now, never could again, not after what they’d made him.

Yet the desire was fierce inside him; sometimes Steve caught Bucky staring at him, regarding a little too closely that sumptuous mouth or the hollow of his throat, wishing he could tear Steve to pieces with his lips and hands and teeth and lavish him with kisses. Steve would glance away, puzzled, maybe a little disgusted. It hung there between them like a bruise, mottled purple and blue and yellow. 

He’d hoped maybe tonight, just for once, Steve wouldn’t ask again. “Really, I’m okay. Getting better every day.” And it was true, he wasn’t lying when he said that. Steve was always proud of the progress he’d made, and making Steve proud instead of anxious and miserable was one of the few joys he’d found in this new life. Bucky finished his drink and the waiter was there almost immediately, asking if he wanted another. Service was always better with Captain America. Bucky smiled and ducked his head. “No, thanks.” 

After he left, Steve said, “What do you say we head home? Gracie’s probably wondering where her midnight snack is.”

Bucky nodded. Steve added, “Though let’s take a cab, okay?” He went out first and hailed one right away; Steve never had trouble getting a cab even on a rainy day, what with that golden halo that hung over his head. Bucky grinned watching him open the door for him; Steve was still almost courtly, even to him. They hadn’t driven but a few blocks before Steve reached over and took hold of his wrist, wrapping his big strong fingers around it. Bucky felt the crimson warmth flow up his arm, a tingling, too, at the knowledge Steve was choosing to touch him, not just allowing himself to be touched. He forgot to breathe, forgot to let his eyes fall anywhere other than on Steve’s tender face.

Steve swallowed hard, his eyes so soft and yielding. “You’re not the only one who needs to feel grounded. Who needs to know his friend is all right.”

Bucky turned to stare out the window so Steve wouldn’t see the tears threatening at his eyes, the way his lip trembled. The city sped by, its cold glitter blurring in his vision. The animal inside him was beating against its cage. Maybe Steve still loved him in some small way, and that should have been enough but it wasn’t, because he couldn’t love him _that_ way anymore. 

So many years ago, Bucky had fallen in love with a skinny, mouthy, pugilistic little asthmatic with the heart of a lion and the soul of a saint, and he’d loved Bucky right back for all his faults and glories. Now they were a couple of broken, damaged relics displaced in time, orbiting around each other like derelict moons, kept together out of Steve’s sense of obligation to their past and Bucky’s desperate need for something to hold on to. 

When they got home, Steve put his hand against Bucky’s back as they went up the stairs. “I don’t even have to ask what colors you noticed tonight. All those rubies and emeralds and ambers, it must have looked beautiful to you.” That almost made Bucky laugh. Nothing was as beautiful as Steve’s ocean blue eyes or his wheat-colored hair or his magenta lips. Bucky just smiled, nodded. 

As he was getting ready for bed, Bucky noticed Steve stealing glances at him from time to time, maybe just for reassurance after he’d gone so far away tonight. He’d slept in front of the couch or the door for weeks when Bucky had first come there, and still checked on him throughout the night, as if he needed proof of life. Bucky had never been certain if it was for his benefit or for Steve’s.

Bucky was pulling back the covers, getting out the catnip-flavored treats he gave Gracie at bedtime, when he heard Steve at the doorway to his room, breathtaking even in just a white undershirt and his gray plaid pajama pants. He appeared boyish and bashful, reminding Bucky of his little self more than he had in a long time. Gracie wound her way through his legs, rubbing against his shins.

“Do you know why I moved here?” he asked, and Bucky shook his head. “Everyone kept trying to get me to move into Stark’s building after Insight, but I was searching for you, and I couldn’t find you. I thought that if I went to Brooklyn, if I went somewhere near our old neighborhood, maybe you’d find _me_.”

“And look, I did.”

Gracie stood on her hind legs and stretched up Steve’s left leg, digging her claws into his thigh, and he gasped “Ow! Ow!” Bucky laughed and rattled the bag of treats, so she left off torturing Steve and ran to jump up on Bucky’s bed. “When you came here, I realized right away that you’d been watching me look for you, that you just hadn’t been ready to be found.”

He thought about the phone conversations he’d overheard Steve having, when his friends were probably telling him that Bucky was too dangerous and that it was suicide to allow him there. One time he’d heard Steve say in an angry, strained voice, “He’s _not an animal_.” At the time Bucky had thought, _No, Steve, they’re right, I am an animal,_ only he couldn’t say that, couldn’t look at his face, so fretful and exhausted. The way Steve had recoiled from him, avoided touching him after that first time, told him all he needed to know in that regard. 

“The last thing you needed was to have the person who tried to kill you lurking around your place, waiting to explode. But after things started coming back, I needed something, I didn’t know what, and I...but I didn’t want you to have to carry that kind of burden.”

Steve looked like he might cry, his chest heaved up and he inhaled sharply. “You were never a burden. You’re the most important person in the world to me.” He took a couple steps forward and brushed one side of Bucky’s hair away from his eyes, tucking it behind his ear. His touch brought blue-white sparks with it. “You don’t have to run away if something’s bothering you. I mean, you can run away, but you can also tell me what’s wrong before you do. Do you remember how you used to tell me that I could talk to you about anything? Well, it’s likewise.”

Bucky wanted nothing more than to put his head on Steve’s shoulder, tuck his face against his neck, and lock his arms around him and never let go. But it would be opening the floodgates, he wouldn’t be able to stop the brutal wanting. Steve would have to push him away and say something like “that’s not who I am anymore.” It would kill him to do that, because he was so kind. 

“I’m okay now. It’s like Sam always says, good days and bad days, you just gotta roll with ’em.”

Steve nodded, his shoulders drooping, and turned toward his bedroom. Bucky got into bed and put his head next to Gracie’s belly, listening to her warm, orange, roaring purr. “Say goodnight, Gracie,” he said as he did every night, and turned out the light.

 

Bucky did his best to work through moments of anxiety in the following weeks instead of bolting on Steve, even when Steve’s friends came over. He’d always tried to be polite to them, staying long enough to be mannerly, but then left through the fire escape at his bedroom window, sticking to rooftops so Steve would be less nervous when he was out of sight and Steve couldn’t follow him. Since the night in Soho, he’d made an extra effort to hang around as long as he could stand it, to actually socialize, even if he didn’t exactly participate in conversation, though Steve still couldn’t convince him to go to Stark Tower with him.

Sometimes he’d catch Steve glancing his way, the look on his face something like pride but maybe also amusement, as if Bucky pretending to be normal was a private joke they shared. He’d yet to last a whole night or get through an entire dinner out, but he took a certain pleasure in Steve’s pleasure. 

Steve was gone more and more often, which was fine with Bucky--it said that Steve was confident in his ability to be on his own, less worried about something happening to him, and it gave Bucky the chance to figure out a way to change the status quo. The world was so different these days, and if Bucky wanted to, he could find someone out there who wanted nothing more than a good time, and he wouldn’t have to hide it or risk arrest. Now that he knew he could want sex again, he could get it somewhere. 

Just somewhere Steve wouldn’t find out. He knew Steve well enough to know that if he thought Bucky was interested in sex, he’d try to give it to him, and the last thing Bucky wanted was a pity fuck. 

One night when Steve was away for one of his charity events, Bucky dropped in to a gay bar, not sure what he was searching for beyond “someone who looked like Steve.” He didn’t even know if he wanted anything more than simply to meet someone, hadn’t thought past the idea of what would happen after, the mechanics of it all. There were quite a few very muscular, well built guys, even a few blonds, and when one of them made eye contact with him, he forced himself to smile when the fellow came over to talk. 

The whole thing was pleasant enough, but Bucky knew right away he’d made a mistake--it wasn’t that he wanted to fuck someone, it wasn’t that he needed or wanted sex at all. It was that he wanted to be close to Steve again, to share that part of himself he’d shared so long ago. To know Steve in every way, and be known by him. Which was all the more depressing, since it was an unattainable goal--far too much had been destroyed inside them both to ever have that again.

But he reminded himself that he was with Steve, they were still friends, and that was something he could never have imagined in those days when his conditioning was failing and he was desperately reaching for something to tether himself to life again, to stop himself from putting a gun in his mouth. It had to be enough, Bucky told himself over and over, and sometimes he almost believed it.

These days he didn’t want to take himself out, at least most of the time. When before he’d wake from a nightmare and think _that’s it, it’s time to end this_ , now he could convince himself to keep going, because at least Steve was here and alive and he cared about him. Sam had told Bucky that the anguish was just the way you knew you were finally alive again. 

Steve still watched him constantly with the vigilance of a minder, a role Bucky had once known all too well. It wasn’t that he didn’t love this version of Steve, but there were times Bucky ached at the memory of holding him when he was frail, of how desperately Steve needed him back then. Of humming as he stroked Steve’s hair to help him sleep when he was in pain, or pressing Steve’s wrist to his mouth, feeling a thready, weak pulse and knowing he was still alive, still there for him. 

Back then Bucky had been needed, he’d been vital. He would never be that again. Not that Steve wouldn’t stop trying to make him feel as though he was, especially when he confessed how miserable he was about coming out of the ice and how much that still haunted him. 

Steve reached across the table at dinner one evening to put his hand on Bucky’s arm, saying, “I thought about it a lot the past few years, what it would be like to give up. To end it for real this time. It was never something serious, but like--like wondering how simple it would be to just stop.” The piercing, ice-blue ache in his voice shook Bucky to the core; he’d never believed Steve capable of thinking such things. “Even at the worst of it when I was sick, I never thought about ending it. Because I had something then I didn’t have when I woke up. Some _one_.”

Bucky just stared down at their hands.

After a deep breath, Steve asked, “Do you know why you reach for my wrist all the time?”

“I think--because you were sick all the time.”

“Yeah. That was something you did constantly, said you were just checking, that I was always threatening to die on you.” 

He couldn’t take his eyes away from Steve’s hand, the pale ecru skin threaded with purple-blue veins, watching the small bump of his pulse point beat beat beat. “I just want you to know that I know what it’s like. And to feel like you’re alone. If you ever feel that way, you can tell me. You can tell me anything.”

“I know,” Bucky said. “I haven’t thought that way for a long time. I appreciate it, though.” Steve moved his hand up along Bucky’s arm, leaning closer, so close Bucky could feel his breath on his neck. Silvery shocks coursed through his body, one after the other, until Bucky pulled his arm back and leaned away from him. Steve closed his eyes and inhaled, then got up to take the dishes to the kitchen.

There was so much pain Bucky had brought to Steve, sorrow that stained his eyes red, that quivered at the base of his throat, that made the breath wheeze in his lungs the way it had when he was small. He was sinking down to the bottom of the river again, and Bucky was the one who’d put him there.

 

Bucky took to researching what he could do about moving on, where and how he could find a place, what sort of options he might have for work. Some way he could free Steve of the monster that lived in his home. Sam had agreed to help him, but said, “You better warn me before you tell him so I can be as far away from the city as possible. Steve is gonna level Brooklyn when he hears you want to leave.”

He was looking through prospects on the laptop, listening to some of Steve’s old records, when he heard Gracie retching, so he charged down the hall, hoping to catch her before she upchucked. She had a bad habit of eating too fast and then leaving most of her dinner on someone’s bed. Steve must have heard him running, because he stepped out of the bathroom, just a towel around his hips, his pearl skin still shower-damp, saying, “Wha--” and Bucky crashed right into him. Steve grabbed hold of his waist as they tumbled down, Bucky sprawled nearly on top of Steve. 

“Whoa,” Steve said, breathless, the air knocked out of him. His fingers clutched Bucky’s ribs. “What the hell?”

Bucky scrabbled backwards off of Steve. “Gracie was puking. I didn’t want her to ruin another one of your pillows. Or mine.”

“Eh, pillows can be replaced.” He sighed and sat up against the wall, staring at Bucky with weary eyes and rubbing his shoulder where Bucky’s metal shoulder had hit him. “That was one of the hardest things about adjusting to the future, you know? How disposable everything is. Nothing’s dear, nothing gets repaired or mended. Just thrown away.”

Gracie had stopped making noises, so she was probably contentedly washing herself in Bucky’s room. Wonderful. “I always miss the powders. Tooth powder instead of tubes of toothpaste. The tins looked like hip flasks. And headache powder instead of pills. Pills are huge now and the powder worked faster. Plus I liked the way things fizzed.”

Steve nodded. “You can still find both of them around if you look hard enough or go online. Vintage. They call stuff like that vintage, it’s so depressing.”

“I suppose it doesn’t really matter, since it doesn’t do much good for us, anyway.” He shrugged, made to get up, but Steve leaned over and gripped his arm. He was slouched, one leg sticking straight out and the other bent at a right angle, the towel exposing his thigh. Bucky stared at it, then moved his eyes up to Steve’s belly, the taut muscles that flexed up and down with Steve’s breath. He pulled his arm away.

Steve blinked at him, slumped back against the wall. “I can’t take this any more.” He put his face in his hands, sighing raggedly, then pushed his fingers through his damp hair. “I can’t keep doing this.”

“I don’t know what you--”

“Jesus, Buck, stop. Just stop.” His eyes shimmered, wet and bloodshot, and his cheeks were flushed deep pink.

Bucky could feel the corners of his mouth turn down, his throat closing off around the lump choking him. The one thing he’d never done this whole time was cry, but he was going to lose it soon, seeing Steve like that. “I’m trying to figure out a way I can get out of your hair, where you can still check on me but where I won’t bother you. I’m sure I can find someplace to--” 

“ _What?_ ” Steve asked as if he’d been struck. 

“You don’t need me here, reminding you of the past and things you’d rather forget.” Bucky knocked the back of his head against the wall, little flashes of pale pink lights flickering behind his eyes with each impact. “Come on, Steve, even Sharon noticed it--your heart belongs to someone else, from back in the war. You don’t need me here mooning around, hung up on a part of you that’s long gone.” 

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” Steve said with a fury that shocked Bucky. “That’s what you took away from that conversation? That I want you to _leave_? That I’m still in love with Peggy?”

Bucky frowned, surprised by how obtuse Steve was being. Everything was dark gray, black around the edges, and his breath came in shallow gulps.

“Of course I still love her. I always will. But that’s-- God, Nat told me the other week that we have nearly two hundred years between us and we’re still the stupidest men she’s ever met, and I didn’t understand what she meant.” He shook his head and got up, pulling the towel tight around him. “Come here.”

He held his hand out and Bucky took it, letting Steve pull him up. They went into his bedroom, where Steve pulled out one of his sketchpads and flipped through a few pages. He fixed Bucky with a pleading look, then dropped the pad on the bed. “Do you remember this?” Bucky scraped his eyes down to the drawing--himself, young, before he’d been poisoned by the war and mutilated and turned into a monster. He was naked except for a little bit of sheet draped over his lower belly, groin, and left thigh, his head turned slightly away, eyes closed. One of the many times Steve had sketched him with those lustful, avid eyes. “I drew this from memory, after it was all over, after I knew you were alive. Because I couldn’t get you out of my head.”

“I’m not that fella anymore,” he said, his legs going out from under him and collapsing on the bed. “I _am_ an animal, even though you don’t want to see it.” Bucky swept his hand down his front. “I’m this grotesque _thing_.”

Steve pressed his lips together till they were white, flipped through a few pages, and showed him a different sketch. “I dream about you all the time, what it would be like to touch you again, to feel your breath on my skin. But you were so broken and damaged when you came here. So _violated_. You shake and grimace every time I touch you, like you can’t bear it, and I know what they did to you so I can hardly blame you for that. I was sure I was making it worse on you. It made sense that you could never want that again, want me, I could completely understand, but then I saw you looking at those pictures online. Only you couldn’t look at me that day, like it repelled you to even think about. And I thought I understood.”

Bucky looked at the drawing--almost the same pose, but this time Steve had filled it in with his metal arm, the increased muscle mass, his long hair. There was a bubble of hysterical laughter rising up inside him. The picture was beautiful, Steve had taken his ugliness and made it seem soft, human, bright.

“You can’t possibly see me this way.”

“I can’t see you _any other_ way. You’re beautiful, you’re alive and you’re here with me and I can’t stand it sometimes, the ache to be with you. But you’ve been hurt so much for so long. I couldn’t bear to add to that.”

Bucky’s breath shuddered and caught in his throat. “Jesus, we _are_ stupid. We didn’t learn a thing from the last time we did this, did we?” Bucky asked, and the laughter finally exploded out of him, high and uncontrolled. 

After a few seconds, Steve seemed to understand why Bucky was laughing, and his face softened with a smile. “And apparently we need visual aids.”

“You were seeing Sharon when I got here, I thought...”

Steve sat next to him on the bed, laced his fingers through Bucky’s. “I’d been trying to get back into life, and I couldn’t find you. I needed to be with someone, especially someone who wanted to be with _me_ , not just Captain America. But she was even more casual about it than I was, kind of like the gals you dated back in the day--and then you came back to me. She was right about what I wanted. Sometimes it takes someone else to knock some sense into us, I guess.”

“I loved to go out and to dance, I loved the dates, but I always knew I’d get to go home to you. I remember that.”

Steve smiled and pushed Bucky’s hair back. “I never did learn how to dance.”

Bucky pressed his cheek into Steve’s hand. “I’m rusty, but I’ll teach you. Real dancing, like we used to do.”

He wanted to tell him he still loved and desired him, but instead he held back the words, uncertain even yet if he should say anything. Steve touched him, insistent hand trembling as it moved across Bucky’s neck, his arm, up under his t-shirt along his back, and he pressed his mouth to Bucky’s cheek and throat. His touch and his lips were a psalm, reciting words of love on his skin. He clutched Steve’s face and kissed him like he was drowning at the bottom of that river, like he was saving him again, and they could both be reborn.

When Bucky tucked his metal hand behind him, Steve shook his head and said, “Don’t do that.” He tugged it up and kissed the fingertips. “I love all of you. Don’t hide it from me.” Bucky ran his thumbs along the edge of Steve’s jaw, let Steve do the same while he kissed him. 

Reaching down, Steve took the towel from his waist and lay back on the bed, pulling Bucky down alongside him. He was breathtaking, the carved white marble of his chest, brown nipples, and dusky hard cock, and Bucky heaved out a shaky sigh as he ran his hand along Steve’s body. As Steve helped him take his shirt and sweatpants off, Bucky closed his eyes, relishing the way Steve’s hands heated his skin, the shimmering gold and silver and copper that played behind his eyelids. Then Steve’s mouth was on his again, hot and wet. 

He pulled away, staring at him. “Buck, you’re shaking. Are you sure this is--”

“It’s good. It’s good shaking,” Bucky said, opening his eyes and slipping his arms around Steve’s strong back. He’d never known he had been waiting to be rescued until Steve had rescued him; he was anchored now, Steve his safe harbor. “Stevie, I’m fine.” 

He devoured Bucky with kisses, hands and lips seemingly everywhere at once, his neck and shoulder and the scar at the edge of the metal socket, his belly and hip and bend of the elbow. 

It wasn’t like their first time, it was slow and breathless and almost delicate, Steve stopping for reassurance that each touch was what Bucky wanted as he moved against him, bodies fit together. Bucky listened to the blood thrumming through his veins, the muted music from the living room, the short sharp breaths from Steve that skated over his skin, each one shaded in his mind with bright, vivid color. Steve’s fingers dug into his skin and his legs pressed tight around him as he careened over the edge, and Bucky thought _yes, this, this is what I needed to remember_ as Steve let himself fall.

Bucky was there to catch him, his fingers mapped to the spaces in between Steve’s rib bones, tongue filling the hollow of his throat to lick away his sweat, calf pressed against the dip of the small of his back. When Bucky came it was to a symphony of colors exploding behind his eyes, like the fireworks they used to watch on Steve’s birthday from the roof of the building, lost in the sensations of light and sound and taste. 

“There you are,” Steve said against his cheek, and Bucky opened his eyes, saw Steve smiling down at him. He didn’t know how long he’d been silent, and he shivered as Steve stroked his hair back.

Bucky ran his hands up and down Steve’s spine, pressed his mouth to the pulse at his throat as he had when Steve was frail and needed Bucky’s strength like air. 

“Guess we didn’t do too bad for idiots,” Steve said in a thick, warm voice, the light limned around him as he pulled Bucky closer.

“Do you want me to stay?” Bucky asked.

“You really gotta ask that?” Steve said, and gave him a soft slap on the rump. 

“Well, since we’re trying to avoid any misunderstandings.”

Steve stared at him with his deep blue eyes, wrapped his hand around Bucky’s wrist and pressed it to his mouth. “Promise me you’ll never hold back from me again. Because whatever you want, I will go to the ends of the earth to give it to you. I want to give you _everything_. Whether it’s feeling safe and loved, or sex, or just bacon-flavored vodka.”

Bucky laughed, nuzzled his face into Steve’s shoulder. “What if I want lime-green hair?”

Grinning, Steve said, “We’ll have to enlist Natasha into helping with that one, but I will make it happen. Though I love your hair now.” He ran his fingers through it for emphasis. 

It seemed as if Steve was falling asleep, but then he said quietly against Bucky’s shoulder, “What colors did you see?”

Bucky sighed. Steve was here in his arms, he was alive, he was beautiful. “All of them.”

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and likes gratefully received, and [reblogs on Tumblr](http://teatotally.tumblr.com/post/99760946530/color-theory-8034-words-by-gwyneth-rhys-ao3) are lovely!


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